Appeal No.	 EAT/612/99

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS

	At the Tribunal
	On 11 November 1999

Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE CHARLES
MR D A C LAMBERT
MR A E R MANNERS

MR F GRIFFITHS	APPELLANT

NORTH EAST DERBYSHIRE DISTRICT COUNCIL	RESPONDENT

Transcript of Proceedings

PRELIMINARY HEARING

Revised

	APPEARANCES

For the Appellant	NO APPEARANCE OR REPRESENTATION BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT	

		MR JUSTICE CHARLES:		This matter comes to us today by way of a preliminary hearing.   No one has attended on behalf of the Appellant.   A perusal of the file shows that although skeleton arguments were put in on behalf of the Appellant there is no letter or record saying that we are being invited to consider this matter on the papers.

The Solicitors acting for the Appellant were telephoned yesterday for the purpose of informing them that the hearing would not take place at 10.30 am but at 2pm.  On that occasion, so far as our research goes, this tribunal was told that nobody would be attending but we are unclear as to what the reasons for that decision were.  When nobody appeared this afternoon we invited the associate to telephone the solicitors.  He did so and was able to speak to someone at the firm but not the person who has day to day conduct of this matter who apparently was not in the office, but was attending a magistrates court.  But the person the associate spoke to invited us to deal with this matter on the papers.  

We are not prepared to deal with the matter on the papers against that background. It seems to us that solicitors acting for Appellants should inform this tribunal clearly what their position isand should generally do so in writing.  It would seem that but for the fact that this tribunal telephoned yesterday as a matter of good administration and politeness to inform the solicitors of a change of time we would have heard nothing at all from these solicitors when this matter came on for hearing.  

In those circumstances, what we propose to do is (a) to adjourn this preliminary hearing to come on on Monday when it will be put in the list with other preliminary hearings that I am dealing with with other members, and (b) to invite the staff of this tribunal to contact the solicitors who act for the Appellant to inform them of this direction and to invite them to set out precisely and clearly what their position is and to fax a letter setting that out to this tribunal tomorrow.  That letter will either explain clearly why they want this tribunal simply to deal with the matter on the papers or whether they wish to attend to represent the Appellant on the preliminary hearing.